Houston, inundated with historic flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey and facing the possibility of more in the coming days, would trade its washed out home series with the Rangers, who would, in turn, give up the series scheduled for Globe Life Park in Arlington on Sept. 25-27 for a trip to Houston.

A simple swap-. Makes all the sense in the world.

Right?

Well, listen: Baseball is a multi-billion dollar industry; nothing is simple about it.

Which is why, starting Tuesday, the Rangers and Astros will play their three-game series scheduled for Houston this week ... in St. Petersburg, Fla. They will probably play in front of absolutely nobody. Nobody goes to Tampa Bay Rays games there; why would they go see two interloping Texas teams? They won't.

It does not matter. For once, baseball isn't purely about crowd size, but about maintaining the integrity of the schedule and the keeping the playing field as level as possible for everybody. Keeping things as equal as possible for everybody is hard; keeping everybody happy is impossible.

Houston pitcher Lance McCullers tweets displeasure about Rangers not swapping series with Astros

What the Rangers wouldn't do -- and they were the third party behind the Astros and MLB to weigh in on this -- was sacrifice their own home schedule. MLB officials announced the scheduling change, but did not offer an official comment.

"There would have been a number of challenges," Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said Monday. "And I say 'challenges' while cringing because the challenges pale compared to what people are going through down there."

Among the challenges: The forecast for the middle of the week here is iffy based on the unpredictability of now Tropical Storm Harvey, Rangers ticket holders with tickets to the late-September series would have been asked to change their plans by three weeks, and the Rangers would have created for themselves a 12-game road trip over the course of the season's final 16 games.

If the sole idea is charity and compassion for another community, then none of this is going to carry much weight in Houston. That is, if Astros fans even have time to look up from the far more serious matter of digging out.

They are going to think the Rangers aren't a compassionate or charitable organization. Scheduling and the championship season, however, should not be confused with compassion. And this is simply about scheduling and the championship season.

Swapping series would have made the Rangers' long odds to reach the playoffs even longer. Aside from that late extended road trip, it would have meant sacrificing any chances they still had at the playoffs to make Houston's road easier. No team is going to do that.

What the Rangers offered to do was host the games this week in Arlington with Houston as the home team. The Rangers offered to give all profits to the Astros. They would have probably been able to coordinate some in-park hurricane relief efforts. They will donate the proceeds from the Texas Two Step 50/50 raffle to relief efforts from all three games against the Angels this weekend. As it is, MLB and MLB Players Association will make a joint donation of $1 million to relief efforts.

The precedent for this scheduling approach was set in 2015, when Baltimore was forced to move an April home series against Tampa Bay because of riots in the city. The games were played in St. Petersburg, with the Orioles as the designated home team. There was plenty of time on the calendar to swap out a home series later in the year, but the teams did not.

Baltimore understood that it was necessary to play games, and the location didn't matter. Baseball could hopefully start to heal some of the city's wounds.

The Astros declined the same situation here. It is understandable. Given the choice of playing as the home team in a rival's park or going to a fully neutral site, they chose the latter. In the midst of what is now likely to be an 18-game road trip because of the weather, they may also get to set up shop in Tampa for a full week. They could host the New York Mets there over the weekend if Minute Maid Park is still out of the question. That's not an insignificant factor.

What's most important now is these teams play to give more fortunate Houstonians a necessary distraction. It's more important that games be used as a chance to raise funds for those in need.